The present invention concerns a marine drive mechanism with a twin-engine distribution transmission.
The Diesel engines in current passenger ships, cruise ships and ferries for instance, are resiliently supported. Naval ships, furthermore, require very quiet hulls to prevent detection by SONAR, and their engines are accordingly also resiliently supported. Engines and transmissions are mounted on a common resiliently supported platform. A pressure bearing rigidly mounted on the vessel's bottom reliably transmits the propeller thrust, and a special displacement coupling transmits torque from the transmission to the propeller while ensuring low hull noise between the transmission and the propeller-shaft train. There is a drawback to marine drive mechanisms of this genus. Although the engines and transmission are resiliently supported well enough to decrease the emission of hull noise, noise can still be transmitted into the hull by way of the propeller-shaft train and easily identified as "water noise". The ability of SONAR to identify not only the ship's class but the individual ship as well is known.